Friday, November 20, 2009

As our Montreal Canadiens get ready to take on the Washington Capitals, in Washington, there are some interesting rumblings that are percolating in the city this Friday morning. Aside from the fact that Montreal will be getting reinforcements in the form of Ryan O'Byrne (yay!) and George Laraque (who cares) back from tonight's game, I am starting to hear a lot of people mention Pierre McGuire's name as a possible candidate for the GM position in Montreal, should it become available.

I think that, barring a miracle turn around, this is going to continue to be a disappointing year and that the Habs will either just make or just miss the playoffs. As such, I think that it is highly likely that Gainey will not be back for another season at the helm of le Club de Hockey Canadien. As such, the natural follow-up question becomes 'Who could be the next GM of this team?' While I am sure that there are no shortage of candidates who would love to be the GM of the Canadiens, one name in particular comes to my mind and that is Pierre McGuire. For those of you who don't know who McGuire is here is a link to his bio on TSN.ca:

Aside from his profile, I personally believe that with over ten years working in broadcast and as a TV analyst, McGuire has a great bird's-eye view of the post-lockout game. I believe that seeing so many teams, getting to know so many GM's, learning different organziational philosophy's and just being exposed to so many different views and ways of conducting business, makes Pierre an excellent choice to be the GM of ANY NHL team. However, to become a GM in the NHL one has to be a good fit for the organization and the organization has to be a good fit for the GM. I believe that the siutation in Montreal presents exactly that situation for both McGuire and for the Montreal Canadiens.

Pierre is born and raised in Montreal, he speaks French - even though he is an anglophone - and deep down he bleeds Blue, Blanc and Rouge. The thing that I find interesting is that, while I personally would love to see McGuire running this team, it seems that I am not alone in this thought. Over the last few weeks, on the Team 990 - a local Montreal sports radio station - I have heard Tony Marinaro mention a few times that he thinks McGuire should be, and maybe will become, GM. Also, this morning, I heard the morning show guys - Casavant, Price and Starr - skirting around the same notion. Seems to me that a groundswell is slowly starting to grow.

Ultimately, this will all be up to Geoff Molson et al., to decide. However if there is one thing that I feel is certain, it is that the Molson brothers will not take losing lightly. They have a legacy, in their family, of success and winning with the Montreal Canadiens brand and they didn't take over ownership in order for the Habs to continue being a first round right off. We'll see what the future brings, but my prediction will be that the rumblings that we are hearing, for McGuire, will slowly grow into a deafening din.

We can only hope that Geoff Molson and co. see things the same way that the fans do or at least has a better suggestion in mind.